MEN_OF FIRE 

J.W. MAHOOD 







Co]pghtiN"_ 



COFOUCHT DEFOSrr. 



OTHER BOOKS 
BY J. W. MAHOOD 



THE ART OF SOUL WINNING. 

THE RENAISSANCE OF METHODISM. 
MAKE JESUS KING. 



MEN OF FIRE 



BY 

J. W. MAHOOD 



^L ^ 



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4^ 



*He shall baptize you with the 
Holy Ghost, and with fire/' 




THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



cAAco^ 






^^v 



Copyright, 1920, by 
J. W. MAHOOD 



©CI.A565018 



1'- 



TO THE PASTORS, THE MEN 
OF FIRE, WHOM I HAVE BEEN 
PRIVILEGED TO ASSIST IN THE 
GREAT WORK OF EVANGEL- 
ISM DURING THE YEARS 

THIS BOOK IS 
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword 9 

Fire the Sign of God 15 

The Flaming Face 23 

Fire Lighted by Prayer 31 

Fire and Regeneration 39 

Fire in the Pulpit 47 

Fire in the Pew 57 

The Message of Fire 67 

Fire and Authority 75 

Fire and Spiritual Reality 83 

Fire and Power 91 

The Heart of Fire 99 

Fire Lighted by Sorrow 107 

Fire and Christian Unity 113 

Some Men of Fire 119 



FOEEWOED 

IT is now more than sixty years since 
William Arthur's Tongue of Fire first 
stirred the church to its farthest battle line. 
It would be well could that thrilling message 
still be read by every minister and Christian 
worker at least once a year. 

But perhaps our greatest need in this new 
age is for Men of Fire rather than for tongues 
of fire. For we need fire in the pew as surely 
as in the pulpit. And, besides, there must be 
a man of fire before there can be a tongue of 
fire. The Holy Spirit comes upon the w^hole 
man. ^^He shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire.'' The man is more than 
the sermon. There must be a Spirit-filled man 
behind every Spirit-filled message. 

No one will deny that there needs to come 
upon all the churches a new and mighty pas- 
sion for soul-winning. We are not giving this 
work the important place that our fathers 
gave it, and that it held in the early Christian 
Church. Bishop W. F. McDowell in his ex- 

9 



10 FOREWORD 

cellent book, Good Ministers of Jesus Christ, 
says, ^^I think we have ten times as good a 
theology as our forefathers had, ten times as 
good an understanding of Jesus and his teach- 
ing, ten times as good a theory of social service 
and human welfare, but nothing like their 
ardor to bring men to God, to bring men and 
^ God together, to restore lost men to God, that 
made some of our forefathers imperial in their 
ministry.'' 

Dr. Robert E. Speer talked with a young 
Chinese Christian who was preaching the 
gospel of Jesus Christ in the borders of the 
province of Hunan. He was a college gradu- 
ate and had come a thousand miles from his 
home to preach good tidings to his fellow 
countrymen. After Dr. Speer had questioned 
him concerning the spirit of the native Chris- 
tians and the influence of Christianity on the 
nation, the young man said, "Mr. Speer, you 
have asked me a great many questions, and 
some of them have been very difficult. Now, 
I would like to ask you one question. You 
know what the Christians in your country are 
like. Are they all men and women of burning 
hearts?'' And Mr. Speer pertinently asks, 
"What would you have said to him?'' 



FOREWORD 11 

Yes^ what would we have said? Are all our 
leaders in the pulpit and in the pew men and 
women of burning hearts? To the man who 
travels over the country, and studies condi- 
tions in the local churches, the fact is evident 
that many churches are spiritually dead, and 
that some of them are petted and compli- 
mented by dead preachers. We have intellec- 
tual preachers and magnetic preachers and 
strenuous preachers, but how few are the 
preachers with burning hearts! And what a 
travesty to see learning and egotism and per- 
sonal magnetism and bluster substituted for 
the Holy Spirit's power. We have church offi- 
cers who are wealthy and diligent in business 
and zealous for the material interests of the 
church, but are they men, like Stephen, ^^full 
of faith and of the Holy Spirit''? We have 
Sunday school teachers who are socially in 
the front rank, who, in business and moral liv- 
ing and high ideals, are without fault, but are 
they men and women "filled with the Spirit"? 

It may be true that we have come to a new 
day, but it is a day of great social and spirit- 
ual unrest, and to save the nation and to save 
the church we must have men and women 
whose lives have been touched by celestial 



12 POEEWOED 

flame, who have been baptized ^Vith the Holy 
Spirit and with fire." Then we shall have 
tongues of fire and hearts of fire in pulpit and 
in pew ; the church will have a real message of 
power, and will be equal to the opportunities 
and problems of this great new age. 

J. W. M. 

^The Pines," Eapid City, Michigan. 



"Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the 
appearance of fire : from the appearance of his 
loins even downward, fire; and from his loins 
even upward, as the appearance of brightness, 
as the color of amber.'' 



FIRE THE SIGN OF GOD 

^^T~10R in our day also, as in the days of 
J/ Elijah, fire is the sign of God/' says 
Dr. Hntton, an English writer. Through the 
ages this has been true — fire is the sign of 
God. When Moses watched his father-in-law's 
flocks in the mountains of Horeb, the wild 
acacia tree flamed, but was not consumed, and 
a voice commanded him to remove his sandals, 
for he was on holy ground. ^^And I beheld,'' 
exclaimed the prophet Daniel, ^^till the thrones 
were cast down, and the Ancient of days did 
sit, whose garment was white as snow, and 
the hair of his head like the pure wool: his 
throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels 
as burning fire." Ezekiel too caught a 
glimpse of his glory and said : ^^Then I beheld, 
and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: 
from the appearance of his loins even upward, 
as the appearance of brightness, as the color 
of amber." And it was Saint John who saw 
in vision his risen Lord and "his eyes were as 
a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine 

15 



16 MEN OF FIRE 

brass^ as if they burned in a furnace; and his 
voice as the sound of many waters. And he 
had in his right hand seven stars : and out of 
his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword : and 
his countenance was as the sun shineth in his 
strength.'' YeSy fire is the sign of God, 

Now, man was created in the image of God ; 
and when, through the atonement of Jesus 
Christ, he is restored to fellowship and peace 
with his Creator, he should be a man of fire. 
^^Be ye therefore perfect," said Jesus, ''even 
as your Father in heaven is perfect.'' And 
this perfection of the human should glow and 
burn with something of the same love and 
holiness that flames in uncreated Deity. 
Moses came near to God in the mountain, and 
when he returned to the people he carried the 
light and glory of the Infinite Face, and we 
read, ^^The children of Israel could not look 
steadfastly on the face of Moses for the glory 
of his face." 

We need to come near to God to-day that 
we may catch the glow of the Eternal. The 
face of God is afar off, and his glory is in 
eclipse. Many have lost God-consciousness, 
and so the holy fire. The age to which we 
have come is electric with great humanitarian 



FIRE THE SIGN OF GOD 17 

and philanthropic movements. Strange to 
say, in our zeal to promote these great move- 
ments we have lost our vision of God. In his 
later days Tolstoy said, "The distinctive mark 
of this age is its lost sense of God.'' This lost 
sense of the Eternal is evidenced by our large 
dependence upon human means and human 
machinery. Many recent church movements 
have been chiefly remarkable for the fault- 
lessness of their organization. The machinery 
has been perfected to a remarkable degree. 
Indeed, some recent movements have been 
chiefly characterized by machine methods. 
Somehow we felt as if the Holy Spirit were 
not needed. In certain sections of the country 
it is being said that the churches are so highly 
organized that the pastor's work becomes a 
constant grind, and if he does not keep up 
with the grind he is "blackballed." As the 
vision of God becomes dim there is always a 
tendency to depend more and more upon 
human means. When God comes near to the 
life the human personality leaps into flame, 
but there is always an utter dependence on 
the Holy Spirit. 

Said Robert Louis Stevenson — and he was 
not known as a religious leader — "No man can 



18 MEN OF FIRE 

truly say that lie has made a success of life 
unless he has written at the top of his life 
journal, ^Enter God.' '' Yet it is the high 
privilege of every Christian to open his heart's 
door to God the Holy Spirit. ^^If ye then 
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto 
your children: how much more shall your 
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 
that ask him?'' And here is our great need 
in this new day to which we have come, that 
God, the Holy Spirit — the Spirit of Burning — 
should be permitted to enter and fill the lives 
of all disciples of Jesus Christ. Only he can 
give power for service. Only he can make life 
worth living. Only he can give perfect trust 
and confidence. Only he can lead us into a 
place where, like Raymond Lodge, we can 
write in the front of our Bibles, "ISo matter 
what country I am in, or what conditions sur- 
round, I am sure ^the Eternal God is my 
refuge, and underneath are the everlasting 
arms.' " Then the drudgery and irksomeness 
and dependence upon machine methods will 
give way to a holy freedom and enthusiasm 
and victorious joy which will make Christian 
service a real delight. 

Yes, we must come near to God, and let him 



I 



FIRE THE SIGN OF GOD 19 

fill us with himself. We must regain God- 
consciousness. Then the whole life will be 
shot through with holy fire. William Arthur 
expressed the great truth of this wondrous 
baptism thus : "When a lecturer on electricity 
wants to show an example of a human body 
surcharged with fire he places a person on a 
stool with glass legs. The glass serves to 
insulate him from the earth, because it will 
not conduct the fire — the electric fluid: were 
it not for this, however much he poured into 
his frame it would be carried away by the 
earth; but, when thus isolated from it, he 
retains all that enters him. You see no fire, 
you hear no fire ; but you are told it is pouring 
into him. Presently you are challenged to the 
proof — asked to come near, and hold your 
hand close to his person; when you do so, a 
spark of fire shoots out toward you. If thou 
then wouldst have thy soul surcharged with 
the fire of God, so that those who come nigh 
to thee shall feel some mysterious influence 
proceeding from thee, thou must draw nigh 
to the source of that fire, to the throne of God 
and of the Lamb, and shut thyself out from 
the world — that cold world, which so swiftly 
steals our fire away. Enter into thy closet 



20 MEN OF FIRE 

and shut thy dooFj and there, isolated, ^before 
the throne/ await the baptism; then the fire 
shall fill thee, and when thou eomest forth, 
holy power will attend thee, and thou shalt 
labor, not in thine own strength, but Vith 
demonstration of the Spirit and with power.' '' 
Then the human personality will reflect the 
divine Personality "as the tiny dew drop 
mirrors the mighty sun.'^ Then God will be 
real. Then we shall be able to make him real 
to others, for others will see in us the sign of 
his Presence. Tes^ fire is the sign of God, 

"0 that in me the sacred fire 
Might now begin to glow, 
Burn up the dross of base desire, 
And make the mountains flow! 

"Refining fire, go through my heart; 
Illuminate my soul; 
Scatter thy life through every part. 
And sanctify the whole.'* 



"And all that sat in the council, looking 
steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been 
the face of an angel.'^ 



ni 



THE FLAMING FACE 

WHEN Bunsen was dying he looked up 
into the eyes of his wife as she bent 
over him and said, ^^In thy face have I seen 
the Eternal.'' How marvelous and how true 
that the human face will come to reflect char- 
acter! The face is often the perfect mirror 
of the soul. Some faces reflect the whirlpool 
of passion or appetite; others reflect storms 
of jealousy and envy and scorn ; others reflect 
the fields and flowers and sunshine. Some 
faces are scarred with bitterness and selfish- 
ness and love of the world, while others are 
radiant with love and light and joy. 

When God speaks to the soul, or touches the 
soul with a new ray of heaven^s light, it is seen 
at once in the face. God talked with Moses, 
and touched his soul with fire; then "the chil- 
dren of Israel could not look steadfastly on the 
face of Moses for the glory of his face.'' God 
comforted Stephen in the midst of his mur- 
derers, and the glory of the heavenly Presence 
shone from Stephen's face, so that "all that 

23 



24 MEN OF FIEE 



sat in the council looking steadfastly on him 
saw his face as it had been the face of an 
angel.'^ 

The holy ones who stand before the throne 
of the Eternal, and of whom human eyes have 
now and then caught a glimpse, have always 
the flaming face. In Ezekiel's wonderful 
vision of the living creatures "their appear- 
ance was like burning coals of flre.'^ And our 
glorified Lord, when he came back to speak to 
John in lonely Patmos, came with light su- 
pernal in his face, and "his eyes were as a 
flame of fire.'' And his presence in the life 
will make the human face glow with "a light 
that never was on land or sea.'' 

In Exod. 33. 14, God says to Moses, "My 
presence shall go with thee, and I will give 
thee rest." But "my presence" is literally 
"my face." His presence — his face — will be 
reflected in our faces, and we too shall have 
the flaming face. 

A Japanese woman appeared at the door of 
one of our mission schools and asked if they 
took only pretty girls to be educated. The 
missionary assured her that they took all who 
came to them. "But," said the woman, "all 
your girls seem to be pretty." The missionary 



1 



THE FLAMING FACE 25 

explained that they were taught soul-culture, 
and that they were Christians. "I do not wish 
my daughter to become a Christian," said the 
woman, "but I want to send her to your school 
to get that look in her face." 

"Nothing speaks like the countenance/' said 
Fenelon. A face that has been lightened by 
the indwelling Spirit will of itself speak 
heaven's message. What the face of Beatrice 
did for Dante, or what the face of Pompilia 
did for Caponsacchi, the flaming countenance 
of the man or woman who lives the radiant 
life will do for the multitudes. It will lift 
them out of the valley of sorrow and discour- 
agement; it will strengthen in the hour of 
temptation; it will inspire to higher and bet- 
ter Christian living. 

Mark Eutherford, in his Miriam's School- 
ing, tells of an old man who when he was a 
young man, walking along a London street, 
met a woman face to face. He did not know 
her, and neither spoke. He simply glanced 
into her face and passed on. He never saw her 
again. Afterward he married, and had chil- 
dren and grandchildren of his own. But that 
woman's face followed him all through life. A 
thousand times that look sat in judgment 



26 MEN OF FIRE 

upon him, or redeemed him from evil, or 
rescued him in temptation. Yet he never saw 
that face but once. When the Holy Spirit has 
lightened the human face it will reflect the 
love of Christ, and will be a constant inspira- 
tion to those among whom we move to nobler 
living. By a look we may turn a life toward 
God, or help some struggling soul on the way 
to victory — 

"As some most pure and noble face, 

Seen in the thronged and hurrying street. 
Sheds o'er the world a sudden grace, 
A flying odor sweet." 

When Kobert McAll lay dead in Paris, a 
workman who had been an anarchist stood 
beside the cof&n weeping. Some one asked, 
^Was he a relative?'' 

"No.'' 

"Why, then, do you weep?" 

"He saved me." 

"What did he say to you?" said the ques- 
tioner. 

"Nothing," replied the former anarchist ; "it 
was his face." 

It was the Christ-like face of the great mis- 
sioner that had saved this anarchist. 

Mr. S. D. Gordon tells a story of a lawyer,' 



THE FLAMING FACE 27 

a scholarly, refined gentleman, who was a 
confirmed skeptic, and who lectured against 
Christianity. One evening the officers of the 
Presbyterian Church were surprised to have 
this man come and ask to be admitted to 
church membership. They concealed their 
astonishment and asked him the usual ques- 
tions, and so hearty and sincere were his 
answers that there could be no doubt that he 
had become a genuine Christian. Then the 
pastor said, ^^You must know how astonished 
we are : would you kindly tell us what has led 
to this change?'' 

The lawyer quietly said, "It was Judge 
Tate's face." 

Then the man explained that he had had 
occasion to consult this eminent Christian 
jurist in a legal matter, and was struck with 
something in his face which he could not 
comprehend. There was "a light, a peace, or 
an intangible, but very real something — I 
could not tell just what." He said that he 
went again and again, ostensibly for legal con- 
sultation, but really to study the man's face. 
And the conviction grew upon him that it was 
his faith in Christ that so affected the face 
and made it radiant. The result was that he 



28 MEX OF FIEE 

became conyinced of the truth of Christianity, 
and accepted Christ. 

It is sin that steals the glory from the 
human face. Unbelief and worldly pleasure 
disfigure the countenance. The prevailing 
materialism of the day is hardening the faces 
of the people. ^^What shall it profit a man if 
he gain the whole worir and lose his smile? — 
for the smile is the flag of the soul/'' said Dan 
Crawford, tt-^ great African missionary. In 
the rush and worry of our modern life the flag 
is missing on many a face to-day. The pres- 
ence of Christ in the heart will restore it. He 
of the flaming face will by his Spirit radiate 
his glory from our faces if we abide in him. 
^^But we all, with open face beholding as in a 
glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into 
the same image from glory to glory even as 
by the Spirit of the Lord.'' 



^^And when they had prayed, the place was 
shaken w^herein they were gathered together; 
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, 
and they spake the word of God with bold- 



FIEE LIGHTED BY PRAYER 

THERE is one key that will unlock God's 
storehouse of holy fire. "Prayer/' said 
Richard Watson, "is the gold key that opens 
heaven/' It has pleased God to make spiritual 
fire and power subject to release by human 
supplication. This has been demonstrated a 
myriad times since that eventful prayer 
meeting that unloosed the tongues of fire at 
Pentecost. 

Perhaps the greatest power, therefore, that 
God has committed to men is prayer. The 
possibilities of a prayer life are unlimited. 
And the vast resources of the prayer realm 
are, to the average Christian, undiscovered. 
Now and again have we seen the mighty influ- 
ence of prayer when there has flashed across 
the world's pathways the radiance of a prayer 
life, like that of George Mueller, of Bristol, 
or J. Hudson Taylor, of the China Inland 
Mission, or Hugh Price Hughes, of the Lon- 
don Mission, or David Brainerd, the apostle 
to the Indians. These men knew how to pre- 

31 



S2 MEN OF FIEE 

vail with God. They knew that there is such 
a thing as "the assurance of faith/' 

Marvelous have been the results of prayer 
through the centuries. Distance seems no 
obstacle in the way of the prayer of faith. 
Prayer in some humble* home in America has 
again and again lighted the torch of salvation 
in distant lands. Bishop Wilson Seeley Lewis, 
speaking of the great revival at Hinghwa, 
China, a few years ago, says that the mother 
of one of the missionaries in Hinghwa wrote 
her daughter from Houston, Texas, that she 
was praying for a great revival in Hinghwa. 
She said: "I spent all night last night in 
prayer, and to-night at twelve o'clock I re- 
ceived the assurance, and it is so sweet and 
blessed that I cannot sleep, but am writing 
you. The revival will have begun before you 
get this letter." Three weeks afterward, with 
streaming eyes, the missionaries read the let- 
ter, for the revival had begun, and in fifty days 
one thousand people were converted. 

Has the church of to-day lost this key to 
God's storehouse? Do we no longer believe 
that God hears and answers prayer? What 
wonder that there is so little prevailing prayer 
when so many are seeking to limit the possi- 



k^ 



FIRE LIGHTED BY PRAYER 33 

bilities of intercession to the ordinary work- 
ing of physical law; and when some men are 
talking so much about the reflex influence of 
prayer ; and when a professor in a big church 
university defines prayer as "a conversation 
both sides of which, structurally considered, 
are mental states of the one who prays''? 
Surely, it is time to return to Pentecost, and 
see how marvelously God opened the windows 
of heaven and poured the Holy Spirit upon 
the waiting disciples in answer to prayer, and 
how, through prayer, the early church grew 
mightily and prevailed. 

Through the centuries, again and again, 
Pentecost has been repeated by prevailing 
prayer. Every great spiritual movement 
through the Christian ages has been begun 
and carried on by prayer. Mr. Robert P. 
Wilder, of the International Committee of 
the Y. M. C. A., says that in 1891 he and a 
friend were walking through Norway when 
they applied for lodging one night at a little 
house in a mountain valley. They soon dis- 
covered that their hostess was a woman who 
knew the secret of a prayer life. From the 
next stopping place they wrote back saying 
that they were praying that the Student 



34 MEN OF FIEE 

Volunteer Movement might be started. Ten 
years afterward when Mr. Wilder and his 
wife visited that humble home, this woman 
brought out the letter that she had received 
ten years before and said, ^^I am going to call 
my husband and children and servants; we 
want to hear how God has answered our 
prayer.'^ Then Mr. Wilder related to the 
household the wonderful movements among 
the students during the preceding ten years; 
and he says that that woman in the mountain 
valley of Norway had more to do with origi- 
nating the Student Movement in Great Bri- 
tain than those who went among the univer- 
sities talking to the students. 

Now, the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray. 
He dwells within us. ^^Because ye are sons, 
God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our 
hearts, crying Abba, Father''; ^^Know ye not 
that ye are a temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you?'' Therefore 
prayer is a supernatural exercise. Henry 
Drummond tried to have us see the natural- 
ness of the supernatural. We need, rather, 
to see the supernatural nature of some of the 
commonest exercises of our holy religion. It 
has been said by some recent writers that 



FIRE LIGHTED BY PEAYER 35 

)rayer is natural to the human heart, and 
that we cannot help praying. In a sense that 
is true. ^Trayer is latent in the life/' because 
we are created in the image of God, but only 
the Holy Spirit can develop the latent power 
of prayer. No man can be mighty in prayer 
who has not received the Holy Spirit into his 
life. "For we know not what we should pray 
for as we ought : but the Spirit itself maketh 
intercession for us with groanings which can- 
not be uttered.'^ 

The answer to prayer may be delayed, but 
with "the assurance of faith'' given by the 
Spirit we can rest. The answer may not be 
according to our preconceived plan, or accord- 
ing to our time schedule, but God's promise 
never fails the obedient soul. Dr. A. T. Pier- 
son talked with George Mueller shortly before 
his death and asked him whether he had ever 
presented any petition to God that had not 
been granted, and Mr. Mueller said that there 
were two men for whom he had prayed sixty- 
two years and they were not converted. 

"Do you expect God to convert them?" said 
Dr. Pierson. 

"Certainly," said Mueller. "Do you sup- 
pose that God would put upon his child for 



36 MEN OF FIRE 

sixty-two years the burden of two souls if he 
had no purpose of their salvation? I shall 
meet them in heaven certainly/' 

Shortly after Mueller's death Dr. Pierson 
was preaching in Bristol and he referred to 
this conversation. As he was leaving the 
church a lady said, ^^One of those men w^as my 
uncle, and he w^as converted and died a few 
wrecks ago.'' The other, a man in Dublin, w^as 
also brought to Christ. 

"Prayer is the sours sincere desire, 
Uttered or unexpressed, 
The motion of a hidden fire 
That trembles in the breast. 

"O thou by whom we come to God, 

The Life, the Truth, the Way; 
The path of prayer thyself hast trod: 
Lord, teach us how to pray!" 



^^ Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily^ 
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born 
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 



FIRE AND EEGENEEATION 

IN every great world crisis there seems to 
have come the necessity for a new em- 
phasis upon some fundamental teaching of the 
Word of God. That has been true from the 
days of Constantine until now. As we stand 
on the threshold of what many believe to be a 
new age in the world's history there has come 
to many thoughtful men the conviction that 
we must return to put a new emphasis on the 
New Testament truth concerning the new 
birth. This great truth has fallen into eclipse 
in recent years. 

A renewed personality is essential to fellow- 
ship with God, and to a life of spiritual vic- 
tory and usefulness. But our modern em- 
phasis on education and Christian culture and 
social service has obscured the supernatural 
work of the Spirit in conversion and regenera- 
tion. The result is superficiality in Christian 
experience. The church would seem to be 
playing the part of Martha to this generation. 

39 



40 MEX OF FIEE 

We have so many plans to work, and so many 
social problems to solve, that we have no time 
to consider the deeper work of the Holy Spirit 
in the human heart. We seem to have forgot- 
ten that men must be born anew before they 
can enter the kingdom of God. 

It is the fire of the Holy Spirit that warms 
our sinful nature into new life. A story is 
told by F. W. Boreham of a party of British 
sailors who landed on a frozen island in the 
far north. By accident they set fire to the 
stunted vegetation, and the flames soon left 
the island a bare and blackened rock. Some 
years later another party visited the island 
and found it covered with a forest of silver 
birch trees that made the once barren rock "a 
scene of sylvan loveliness." The fire had 
warmed and awakened the slumbering life in 
the seeds which had lain dormant for years in 
the grip of the arctic cold. The flames had 
caused the wilderness to blossom as the rose. 
So does the Holy Spirit first purify and then 
kindle into flame the human heart. When will 
we learn that Jesus Christ does not destroy? 
He converts and transforms. He awakens, 
perfects, and glorifies. 

There is an old fable about a lamp that was 



FIRE AND REGENERATION 41 

placed in a rude fisherman's hut until its flame 
changed the coarse wooden planks to silver, 
and then this noble metal stretched itself out 
into the accidental forms of pillars and posts 
and beams, and soon the rude hut became a 
beautiful temple all glorious within. That is 
what really happens when the Spirit of God 
is allowed a place in the human heart. The 
whole nature is renewed and cleansed and 
glorified by the heavenly fire. 

Some of our statesmen have had much to 
say recently about a universal brotherhood. 
That is a splendid ideal. It is the Bible ideal. 
But we can never have a universal brother- 
hood until humanity has a new heart. Mr. 
Balfour, the great British statesman, says that 
before we can have a changed world we must 
have a changed heart. He is right. And the 
only way to reach this ideal is by the Spirit's 
regeneration of the individual heart. 

We are having a revival of Pelagianism 
these days. The old Bible teaching concern- 
ing the depravity of the human heart has been 
relegated by modern theologians to the dusty 
tomes of ancient lore, and if the good Bishop 
of Hippo could rise from his grave he would 
find ample opportunity to wield his sword in 



42 MEN OF FIRE 

defense of the truth. ^This/' said Augustine, 
^^is the hidden dreadful poison that Pelagian- 
ism infuses : it would make the grace of Christ 
consist in his example, and not in his life, say- 
ing that men are made righteous by imitating 
him, not by the power of the Holy Spirit/' 
We no longer believe with Paul that we "were 
by nature the children of wrath," and the 
direct result is a weakening of the Bible doc- 
trine of repentance, and the disposition to 
treat sin as a joke. The denial of the Scrip- 
ture teaching concerning the fall of man and 
the inherent depravity of the human heart 
soon takes all the heinousness out of sin, all 
the merit out of Calvary, and all the glory out 
of redemption. 

And here is the reason why so little em- 
phasis is placed on conversion to-day. Men 
would have us believe that we are naturally 
divine, and that there are some easier ways 
into the kingdom of God. We need to reread 
the life stories of the mighty gospel preachers 
from Paul, the apostle, to Dwight L. Moody. 
When John Wesley asked his preachers the 
question, "What can be done in order to revive 
the work of God?'' he answered it himself, 
saying, "Let every preacher read carefully the 



FIRE AND REGENERATION 43 

life of David Brainerd." That flaming apostle 
to the Indians, describing his conversion, 
wrote in his diary: "Here in a mournful, 
melancholy state, I was attempting to pray; 
but found no heart to engage in prayer or any 
other duty. My former concern . . . was now 
gone . . . having been endeavoring to pray 
for near a half hour; then as I was walking 
in a dark, thick grove, unspeakable glory 
seemed to open to the view and apprehension 
of my soul. I do not mean any external bright- 
ness, for I saw no such thing ; nor do I intend 
any imagination of a body of light, , . . but 
it was a new inward apprehension or view that 
I had of God such as I never had before, nor 
anything which had the least resemblance to 
it. I stood still, wondered, and admired! I 
knew that I never had seen before anything 
comparable to it for excellency and beauty. 
It was widely different from all the concep- 
tions that ever I had of God or things divine. 
. . . My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable 
to see such a God, such a glorious divine 
Being.'' 

From that hour David Brainerd sought 
only the glory of God, and whether it was on 
a pallet of straw in an Indian wigwam, or in 



44 MEN OF FIEE 

the home of his friend Jonathan Edwards, one 
passion consumed him — to see his Indians 
converted to God. 

We need not expect any great nation-wide 
revival until we begin to preach more as our 
fathers did concerning the sinfulness of the 
human heart, the need of repentance, and the 
absolute necessity for the new birth as a condi- 
tion of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. 
The Holy Spirit must come to his own in his 
renewing and sanctifying grace, and our natu- 
ralism and Pelagianism must give way to the 
supernaturalism of the Spirit in making salva- 
tion real through the atoning blood of Calvary. 

*'Come, Holy Spirit, come! 
Let thy bright beams arise; 
Dispel the sorrow from our minds. 
The darkness from our eyes. 

"Convince us of our sin, 

Then lead to Jesus' blood. 
And to our wondering view reveal 
The secret love of God. 

" 'Tis thine to cleanse the heart, 
To sanctify the soul. 
To pour fresh life in every part, 
And new-create the whole." 



^^But Ms word was in mine heart as a burn- 
ing fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary 
with forbearing, and I could not stay/' 



FIRE IN THE PULPIT 

THE one supreme qualification for the 
Christian ministry is a life that flames 
with the fires of Pentecost. We have plenty of 
scholarship in our pulpits to-day, but we are 
lacking in fire. When Father Taylor heard 
Emerson preach he said, "It would take as 
many sermons like that to convert a human 
soul as it would quarts of milk to make a man 
drunk.'' In many a pulpit either learning or 
eloquence or personal magnetism has been sub- 
stituted for the Holy Spirit's power, and real 
spiritual life has completely disappeared. 
Said Frederic W. Eobertson : "When once the 
idolatry of talent enters the church, then fare- 
well to spirituality. When men ask their 
teachers, not for that which will make them 
more humble and godlike, but for the excite- 
ment of an intellectual banquet, then farewell 
to Christian progress." The increasing em- 
phasis by the church upon education during 
the last quarter of a century has been well, but 

47 



I 



48 MEX OF FIRE 

the spiritual emphasis has not kept pace with 
the intellectual. We know the message of 
heaven better than ever before^ but we do not 
speak it with burning hearts and tongues of 
fire. The modern sermon too often only scin- 
tillates when it should flame and burn. 

"Soft words, smooth prophecies are doubtless weU; 
But to rebuke the age's popular crimes 
We need the souls of fire, the hearts of that old time." 

Lord Burleigh said of John Knox, "His 
voice is able in an hour to put more life in us 
than six hundred trumpets blaring in our 
ears." But many modern pulpit messages can- 
not be rightly dignified to comparison with 
trumpets. A tin whistle would suit the effort 
better. Too often we find the pulpit in our 
day quibbling over little things while the great 
truths of life and destiny wait for proclama- 
tion. Many of the controversies that have 
occupied the front pages of the church press 
and that have frequently been introduced into 
the pulpit by men "anxious to keep abreast 
with the times" have been a travesty on gospel 
preaching. 

A story is told of Lloyd George, the gTeat 
British statesman, that he was one day riding 



FIRE IN THE PULPIT 49 

with a friend, and he explained to this friend 
that in his church, the Welsh Baptist, they 
were having a trying controversy over the 
translation of a word in the Great Commis- 
sion. Some thought that it should be ren- 
dered, "Baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," while 
others insisted that it should be, "Baptizing 
them into the name of the Father, the Son, 
and the Holy Ghost/' "And,'' said Lloyd 
George, "we are having a terrible time. We 
have become divided into the ^ins' and the 
^intos,' and the strife has become so intense 
that a number of men are willing to die for 
their convictions. And I am willing to die 
for my convictions," said Lloyd George, "but 
for the life of me I cannot remember on which 
side of the subject I am." 

On its editorial page, an influential daily 
paper recently declared that preaching the 
Word had now become a business instead of a 
mission. No statement could describe more 
truthfully the modern pulpit as a whole. The 
pastor is no longer a prophet. He is a pro- 
moter — a hewer of wood and a drawer of 
water. He is so busy with the latest drive that 
he has no time for a revival, no time for ag- 



50 MEN OF FIEE 

gressive work in soul-winning. And because 
the voice of the prophet has been stilled, the 
age has been losing its grip on the supernatu- 
ral. Sheer naturalism is the only message 
heard in some pulpits to-day. The pulpit has 
dropped to the level of the platform. A godly 
woman said recently: ^^It is a real treat to 
hear a gospel sermon once more. We have 
nothing but lectures in our church now.'^ 

And so it has come to pass that many a 
church is little more than a respectable social 
club from whose platform is given a little 
mental or moral stimulus once or twice a 
week. The Holy Spirit has been crowded out. 
The candlestick has been removed. The life 
is gone. Yet the organization persists in call- 
ing itself a church. The minister is coddled 
and petted and complimented. The organiza- 
tion is proud of its beautiful temple, its splen- 
did ritual, its charming music, and its popular 
preacher. It has invested in Liberty Bonds 
and supported the Red Cross and contributed 
to the Y. M. C. A. and the Salvation Army 
drives, and subscribed to the reconstruction 
program of the church. But upon its altars 
the fires of God have died out and nothing is 
left but the ashes of empty profession. 



FIEE IN THE PULPIT 51 

But here and there are signs of an awaken- 
ing. There are some pulpits that still flame, 
and there are some hearts in the pews in which 
the holy fire still burns, and these are begin- 
ning to ask for the "old paths." Here and 
there consecrated laymen are beginning to 
say : "We want a preacher, not a promoter or 
church manager. We want a prophet of God 
whose lips have been touched with the old- 
time fire. We want a man with unction as 
well as intellect, with spiritual power as well 
as magnetic force.'' There are many longing 
hearts in our churches to-day that are waiting 
to hear a human voice turned into a tongue 
of flame by the baptism of fire, and praying 
for a spiritual revival that shall quicken both 
pulpit and pew into a new life of service and 
holy daring. 

When in later life, burdened by sickness, 
Spurgeon was anxious to get back into his 
pulpit he said, "If I ever preach again, I will 
leave out every bit of flourish, and preach 
nothing but present truth, hurl it at the people 
with all my might, live at high pressure, and 
direct all my energies to the salvation of 
souls." We need men with such a conviction 
to-day — men like Jeremiah who can say, 



52 MEN OF FIRE 

^^There is in my heart as it were a burning 
Are shut up in my bones'' — men like Henry 
Martyn, who as his soul flamed with one dom- 
inant desire, cried, "Now watch me burn out 
for God/' 

Some one said that in preaching, the thing 
of least importance is the sermon. Very 
little of the average sermon is remembered by 
the hearers. But there is a subtle influence, 
a spiritual atmosphere, that flows from every 
Spirit-filled preacher, that makes his words 
prophetic, that lifts whole congregations into 
higher realms of living, and leaves in their 
lives influences that abide through all the 
cycles of time. Thirty minutes of such preach- 
ing is worth a thousand carefully prepared 
sermons where the Holy Spirit has no place. 
The greatest heights of truth and inspiration 
are not reached by analysis or logic, but only 
when the human spirit is lifted by the divine 
Spirit into the realm of the Inflnite, and the 
heart is thus brought so near to God that it 
can hear the whispers of heavenly wisdom and 
love. And this is the preaching for which 
many hearts hunger to-day. They have been 
starved by essays on philosophy, and philippics 
on current events, and appeals in behalf of 



FIRE IN THE PULPIT 53 

humanitarian organizations, and now they 
want the old gospel of a crucified and risen 
Christ, preached ^^in demonstration of the 
Spirit and of power." The pulpit needs men 
of fire. 



No evil is more marked among the Christian 
churches of this day . . . than the absence of 
this Spirit of Burning. 

— Alexander Maclaren. 



FIRE IN THE PEW 

THE average church member is not a man 
of fire. He may be thoughtful and kind ; 
he may be charitable and helpful in many 
ways; he may be generous and sympathetic 
toward all good work; but he does not flame. 
The element most needed in our pews to-day 
is fire — spiritual fire. In most of our churches 
we have almost perfect organization, but we 
are lacking in dynamic power. We have more 
machinery than we have power to run, and the 
result is deadness, coldness, formality. Many 
a church has become a spiritual morgue — dead 
souls all around. They have interest in 
worldly pleasure and intellectual gymnastics 
and musical programs, but no interest in Bible 
study and prayer and soul-winning. They are 
interested in all humanitarian and patriotic 
work, but have no interest in the development 
of a personal Christian experience. 

The glory of Israel, even in her darkest 
days, was that visible token of the presence of 
Jehovah — the ark of the covenant. When 

57 



58 MEN OF FIEE 

that was lost at Ebenezer^ all seemed lost. 
The ancient glory had departed, and the wail 
of the daughter-in-law of Eli is one of the most 
pitiable things in all Old Testament narrative. 
But oyer the door of too many modern 
churches might be written the word ^^Ichabod" 
— "The glory is departed.^' 

Fire in the pew is just as essential as fire 
in the pulpit. However zealous and conse- 
crated the ministry may be, if there is not a 
% consecrated and Spirit-filled laity, there will 
be no great spiritual movement in any church 
or community. When Peter stood up at Pente- 
cost to preach his first sermon it is not likely 
that very many people heard his voice. But 
he was surrounded by a praying, Spirit-filled 
church that had been in the upper room, and 
as soon as the sermon was concluded this pray- 
ing, Spirit-anointed company ran through the 
streets of Jerusalem repeating the message 
that Peter had spoken and persuading men to 
be reconciled to God. These hundred and 
twenty disciples upon whom had come tongues 
of fire were just as responsible for the three 
thousand conversions as was Peter's sermon. 

The baptism of fire made soul- winners of 
^ every man and woman in the first Christian 



FIRE IN THE PEW 59 

Church. Indeed^ if after Pentecost there had 
been found any Christian who was not doing 
something to introduce others to Christ, the 
genuineness of that man's Christian experi- 
ence or that woman's Christian life would 
have been seriously doubted. The baptism of 
fire always makes witnesses for Christ. In 
Korea to-day the standard of a man's Chris- 
tian life is measured by his success in bringing 
others to Christ. 

1. This baptism will give joy in soul-win- 
ning. When the Holy Spirit fills the life he 
floods the heart with God's love. "The love 
of God shed abroad in your hearts by the 
Holy Spirit, which is given to you." And this 
love — God's love — will constrain us to win 
others to Christ. "The love of Christ con- 
straineth us/' said the apostle Paul. Impelled 
by the same love that brought Christ from his 
Father's throne to redeem the world we will 
want to rescue men and women from the death 
eternal. We will rejoice that we are called 
to the highest service in God's universe — to 
save a soul from death. At the close of a series 
of special meetings a young lady said to me, 
"Had somebody said to me two weeks ago 
that I would ever speak to anyone about be- 



60 MEN OF FIEE 

coming a Christian, I would have thought him 
foolish. But I have come to have a real joy in 
winning others to Christ.'^ To my personal 
knowledge that young woman had brought at 
least a dozen of her young friends to Christ 
during the ten days preceding, and she was 
the happiest person in the community. ^^They 
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of 
the firmament; and they that turn many to 
righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.'' 

2. This haptism consumes fear. The early 
disciples waxed bold in giving testimony. 
There were doubtless many timid souls among 
them, but the indwelling Spirit made them 
^^strong and very courageous." They no 
longer feared the face of man, for now they 
were subject to a higher power. Over the 
grave of Sir Henry Havelock you may read 
these words, "He feared men so little because 
he feared God so much." The layman Stephen 
became so filled with the Holy Spirit that his 
opponents were not able to resist the wisdom 
and the spirit by which he spake. Yet he was 
only a deacon in the church, with no ordina- 
tion and no special training for the work of 
witnessing. When every pastor is surrounded 
by a company of praying, Spirit-filled disciples, 



FIRE IN THE PEW 61 

then it will be easy to preach the message of 
salvation and invite men and women to make 
the great decision. 

But this baptism does not make us self- 
reliant nor vainglorious. It gives humility 
and utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit. 
"They spake the word of God with boldness/' » 
but that boldness was always subject to the 
mind of Christ, and was characterized by a 
spirit of genuine humility. With Peter and 
John they could all say, "We cannot but speak 
the things that we have seen and heard.'' 

3. This baptism destroys wavering and in- ^ 
stability. These early disciples "continued 
steadfastly" or "with steady persistence in the 
apostles' teaching." One of the most dis- 
couraging situations in which any pastor can 
find himself is to be surrounded by a lot of 
church members who are utterly unstable. 
One day they give evidence of special devotion 
to the work of the Kingdom, and the next day 
they commit some act, or are guilty of some 
neglect, that shows utter disregard for the 
most solemn vows and the most reverent 
consecration. Sometimes they are on the 
mountain of Christian experience and some- 
times in the bog — mostly in the bog. They will 



62 MEN OF FIEE 

pledge fidelity to some good cause and in a few 
days seem to forget all about it, and turn their 
attention to some new thing. Such people are 
always a hindrance to the work of the church, 
and there are all too many of them in most 
churches. Only the holy fire of Pentecost will 
transform and give stability to these waver- 
ing, inconstant souls, and make them a mighty 
force for righteousness. 

There is a story of a pastor who had a dream 
in which he thought an angel came and 
showed him his church record. Opposite each 
name was a plus sign or a minus sign, indicat- 
ing that there were some who added to the 
strength of the church while others subtracted 
from it. A personal Pentecost will always 
put a plus sign opposite our name on the 
church register, and life will really count for 
something from the spiritual standpoint. 

This, then, is our great need in all the 
churches to-day: Spirit-filled men in the pul- 
pit ; Spirit-filled men and women in the choir ; 
Spirit filled men and women in the Sunday 
school ; Spirit-filled men and women in official 
meetings, in the young people's society, and in 
every department of the church's activities. 
Then the days of the Spirit's mighty working 



FIRE IN THE PEW 63 

will return, and ^^the ransomed of the Lord 
shall return, and come to Zion with songs and 
everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall 
obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sigh- 
ing shall flee away." 

"Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, 
With all thy quickening powers; 
Kindle a flame of sacred love 
In these cold hearts of ours. 

"Look how we grovel here below, 

Fond of these earthly toys; 
Our souls, how heavily they go, 
To reach eternal joys. 

"In vain we tune our formal songs. 
In vain we strive to rise; 
Hosannas languish on our tongues, 
And our devotion dies. 

"And shall we then forever live 
At this poor dying rate? 
Our love so faint, so cold to thee. 
And thine to us so great! 

"Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, 
With all thy quickening powers; 
Come, shed abroad a Saviour's love. 
And that shall kindle ours." 



/ 



"Wherefore thus saith the Lord God of 
hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I 
will make my words in thy mouth fire, and 
this people wood, and it shall devour them.'' 



THE MESSAGE OF FIRE 

THE Word of God is the message of fire. 
"Is not my word like as a fire, saith the 
Lord?'' When there is fire in the pulpit and 
fire in the pew, the Word of God will come 
with power. A Christian minister has one 
supreme message. When anything else, how- 
ever good, crowds out the gospel of Jesus 
Christ, the Holy Spirit is grieved. For it is 
his prerogative to give power with the preach- 
ing of the gospel. In these days there is dan- 
ger that the pulpit shall proclaim everything 
but the gospel message. Indeed, it begins to 
look as if we would have to add some more 
Sundays to the calendar if pastors are able to 
present all the special interests that they are 
asked to preach about. We have Children's 
Day, and Veterans' Day, and Hospital Day, 
and Temperance Day, and Armenian Day, and 
Soldiers' Day, and Law Enforcement Day, 
and Mother's Day, and Home Coming Day, 
and who knows how many more? Now some 
one wants a Sunday set apart as Babies Day. 

67 



68 MEN OF FIRE 

Some pastors are beginning to ask when they 
are expected to preach the gospel. To be sure, 
the church must be interested in all humani- 
tarian and social problems, but when these 
things monopolize the hours of holy worship 
and the time that should be given to the proc- 
lamation of the great truths of revelation, no 
wonder many churches are only half filled, 
and the multitudes starve spiritually. 

The Word of God will have the supreme 
place in every message of fire. We need to 
give heed to-day to Paul's exhortation, ^Treach 
the word.^' Mrs. Edith Fox Norton, writing 
from stricken Belgium during the World War, 
said : ^^We have never before realized the power 
of the Word of God to save human lives as we 
have since we were given our ministry to the 
soldiers of the Belgian army. One example : a 
soldier, Jacques B., was sitting in a trench 
which bore the name ^Le boyau de la mort/ 
This name signifies The bowels of death,' and 
it was a death trap, for at just a little distance 
lay the German trench, across a narrow river, 
and it was on higher ground than our own 
trench. A heavy bombardment was on. They 
were expecting death at any moment, and he 
found a little book lying close to him. He 



THE MESSAGE OF FIRE 69 

took it and began reading it, and found it to 
be the Gospel of Saint John. It recalled to 
him a period in his life when he attended a 
Protestant service in Brussels. He read and 
read, and at last the word was sent home that 
the Spirit had done its work, and Jacques had 
accepted the Saviour. He wrote his name on 
the back cover at the end of the decision form, 
tore it off, and, at the end of the bombardment, 
sent it to us in London. Afterward we met 
him and were surprised at the great change 
in his countenance.'' 

The true prophet of God speaks his Master's 
message, and that message is found in the 
inspired Scriptures. It may have different 
notes and may touch human life from many 
different angles, but preached by a man of 
fire, will always be mightily effective. Paxton 
Hood used to say that good preaching had 
always "hooking or hitting power." He illus- 
trated the first by the story of a minister who 
occupied a pulpit at Inverness, Scotland, on 
a Sabbath when the regular pastor was absent. 
"How did you like him?" asked one Scotch- 
man of another. "Weel," said the other, "he 
carries a braw rod, and a bonny long line, but 
eh ! mon, there is neither hook nor bait at the 



70 MEN OF FIRE 

end of it.'^ The message of fire will always 
have either "sl hooking power or a hitting 
power/' 

The men whose words have lighted the 
multitudes in every age have always been men 
who have emphasized some great cardinal 
teaching of the Bible. Peter emphasized re- 
pentance. So did John Knox and John Wes- 
ley. Paul emphasized faith and grace. So 
did Martin Luther. John emphasized love. 
So did Moody. There are some great cardinal 
truths of the Word that need new emphasis 
in the Christian pulpit as we stand on the 
threshold of an age of reconstruction. 

1. We need a new emphasis on the awful- 
ness of sin. We need a great soul-convicting 
revival. The growing laxity of conscience 
concerning the enormity of sin against God 
is startling. William E. Gladstone said, ^^The 
decay of the sense of sin against God is one of 
the most serious portents of these days.'' 
^Tools make a mock of sin," says the Word, 
that is "treat sin lightly," or "joke with sin." 
Here is the reason for the world tragedy 
through which we have just passed. For fifty 
years the German people have been inocu- 
lated with a philosophy that treated sin 



THE MESSAGE OF FIRE 71 

lightly. Nietzsche and Hegel and Treitschke 
all put the state above morality. ^^Christian 
morality/^ said Nietzsche, "is the most ma- 
lignant of all falsehoods.'' Treitschke taught 
that rulers may sin wantonly if in the in- 
terests of the state. That philosophy, born 
in hell, and promulgated by Bernhardi and 
Nietzsche and Treitschke and the Hohenzol- 
lerns and the Von Hindenburgs, debauched 
and brutalized a great people until they were 
guilty of the greatest atrocities ever charged 
against a civilized nation. When sin is made 
a joke it will debauch and curse the nation. 
And what it does for the nation it will do for 
the individual. Every pulpit and every Sun- 
day school class and every young people's 
society should sound the alarm concerning the 
awfulness of sin. It is the one thing in all 
God's universe that He hates. He says of it, 
"That abominable thing that I hate." 

2. We need a new emphasis on the merit 
and power of the atoning blood of Christ. In 
recent years the tendency has been to make 
the cross of Christ of none effect. And this 
in spite of the fact that the history of the 
Christian Church will bear witness that when- 
ever Christ has been preached in the fullness 



72 MEN OF FIRE 

of his priestly office as sin's atonement, the 
church has always gone forward with vic- 
torious strides. But whenever the testimony 
to his redemptive work has been weak and 
faltering there have come spiritual barrenness 
and apostasy. A certain minister declared 
that there was one hymn he never asked his 
congregation to sing, and that was ^^There is 
a fountain filled with blood.'' He said, "That 
hymn does not fit into the aesthetic ideas of 
my people.'' God pity the man who pretends 
to be called to preach the gospel of the Son 
of God who leaves out the very heart of the 
gospel. Every true ambassador of Christ will 
surely find his heart singing, 

"Dear dying Lamb! thy precious blood 

Shall never lose its power, 
Till all the ransomed church of God 
Are saved to sin no more." 



*^For this cause I Paul^ the prisoner of 
Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard 
of the dispensation of the grace of God which 
is given me to you- ward: how that by revela- 
tion he made known unto me the mystery; 
. . . which in other ages was not made known 
unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto 
his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." 



FIRE AND AUTHOEITY 

IT was said of Benjamin Disraeli that, in 
spite of his remarkable career as a states- 
man, he lacked two qualities necessary to the 
highest leadership. He was never quite in 
earnest, and he did not impress one as having 
a dominating conviction. Charles Kingsley 
said, "I am more and more powerfully awake 
to the fact that the curse of our generation is 
that so few of us deeply believe anything." A 
dominating conviction is always necessary to 
real leadership in any realm of life, for a true 
leader must have authority, and conviction is 
necessary to authority. It is said of the Mas- 
ter that ^^He spake as one having authority, 
and not as the scribes.'' But the word au- 
thority is e^ovalav which indicates an inward 
source. The fire of the Spirit burned within, 
and therefore he spake as never man spake. 
After Pentecost it is said of the apostles that 
they spake with ^^a holy boldness," and "with 
great power" they gave witness of the resur- 
rection of the Lord Jesus. There will be no 

75 



76 MEN OF FIEE 

note of authority in the message that is not 
backed up by a great conviction. If there has 
been any weakening of faith in the great 
fundamental teachings of the Word of God, 
the note of authority will be missing from the 
preacher's message. 

Speaking of Carlyle, Chesterton said: 
^^There are two main moral necessities for the 
work of a great man: (1) that he should be- 
lieve the truth of his message, and (2) that 
he should believe in the acceptability of his 
message.'' Perhaps the weakest place in our 
modern preaching and Sunday school teach- 
ing and in all our Christian work is the lack 
of a great conviction. We are not dead sure 
of the truths we preach and teach, and there- 
fore the note of authority is missing. 

A United States senator, in an article in the 
Saturday Evening Post a few years ago, told 
of a gentleman with good opportunity for in- 
vestigation who asked every young preacher 
whom he met during the summer vacation 
three questions : 1. Do you believe in God the 
Father; God a Person; God a definite intelli- 
gence — not a congeries of laws floating like a 
fog through the universe; but God a Person 
in whose image you were made? 2. Do you 



FIEE AND AUTHORITY 77 

believe in Christ as the living Son of God, 
dying on the cross for our sins, and raised 
from the dead? 3. Do you believe that when 
you die you will live again as a conscious in- 
telligence, knowing who you are and who 
other people are? There was not a single 
unequivocal, earnest ^^yes'' by any man to any 
of these questions. They all wanted to ex- 
plain what was the latest thought upon the 
subject, and to declare that there were some 
stubborn objections. Now I do not know with 
whom this gentleman conversed, but he said 
that all these ministers to whom he proposed 
these questions admitted "that they had 
noticed an absence of real influence upon the 
hearts of their hearers, and thought that this 
same condition is spreading throughout the 
modern pulpit.^' It seemed not to have 
dawned upon them that the trouble was with 
themselves. The loss of a great conviction 
from their lives has stilled the note of au- 
thority in their messages. 

Only a personal Pentecost will restore this 
note of authority, for when the Holy Spirit 
fills the life he will bear witness to the truth. 
"He shall take of mine and shall declare it 
unto you," said Jesus. Then we shall "speak 



78 MEN OF FIEE 

the word of God with boldness/' Then there 
will be blood-red earnestness behind every 
message. ^^Every bullet will hit the mark/' 
said Emerson, '^if it is dipped in the marks- 
man's blood." The Holy Spirit, infilling the 
life, will make the great truths of revelation 
so real to us that they will become a part of 
us; and truths that have been "dipped in our 
own blood" will surely reach and stir the 
hearts of those who hear. 

The Old Testament prophets were men of 
fire. Therefore they spake with authority. 
There was a "Thus saith the Lord" behind 
every message. They did not hesitate to say, 
"Thou art the man." Dr. Forsyth says that 
in the old days the prophets were perfectly 
certain of their position as they said, "Here 
am I," while to-day in our haze and lack of 
certitude we say, "Where am I?" The dy- 
namic of authority is in the truth of God, and 
if the preacher's confidence in the Word be 
shaken, then the prophet will become a mere 
rhapsodist or dreamer. The old Cardinal, in 
The Master Christian, said, "We only offer 
vague hopes and dubious promises to those 
w^ho thirst for living waters of salvation and 
immortality. It is as if we did not feel sure 



FIEE AND AUTHORITY 79 

enough of God ourselves to mate others sure.- ' 
The man who is sure of his message and sure 
of his commission will speak with confidence 
and power. And the Holy Spirit alone can 
give to the heart and life this mighty certi- 
tude. The baptism of fire will transform us 
from manikins into spiritual giants, from 
echoes into thunderbolts, and from mere men 
pleasers into true prophets of God. 

"Holy Spirit, Truth Divine! 
Dawn upon this soul of mine; 
Word of God, and inward light. 
Wake my spirit, clear my sight. 

"Holy Spirit, Power Divine! 
Fill and nerve this will of mine; 
By thee may I strongly Ifve, 
Brav-ely bear, and nobly strive!'* 



"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart 
of man, the things which God hath prepared 
for them that love him. But God hath re- 
vealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the 
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things 
of God." 



FIRE AND SPIRITUAL REALITY 

PROFESSOR HIBBARD, of Wesleyan 
University, used to say to his students, 
"You cannot give a clear expression unless 
you have a clear impression.'' We cannot 
make spiritual things real to others unless 
they are very real to us. And only the Holy 
Spirit can make real to us the great truths of 
the spiritual life. The greatest need among 
Christians to-day is a clear consciousness of 
the reality of the spiritual realm. The tend- 
ency of the age has been so materialistic and 
utilitarian that spiritual vision has grown 
dim. Emerson said, "The true meaning of 
spiritual is real.'' We have a great multitude 
of professing Christians to-day to whom 
spiritual things are mere shadows, and Christ 
a mere phantom. The most real things in the 
lives of the early Christians were the atoning 
blood of Christ, and His resurrection power. 
But these great realities made real the whole 
spiritual realm. 

The man of fire knows the reality of the 
83 



84 MEN OF FIEE 

spiritual universe. To him there are no dead 
worlds. All creation teems with glorious life. 
Every radiant world gleams with the majesty 
of a Creator's power, and every created, re- 
deemed, and glorified soul lives because God 
lives. 

"And ever near us, though unseen, 

The dear immortal spirits tread; 
For all the boundless universe 
Is life — there are no dead.'* 

The man of fire knows the reality of The New 
Birth. He has passed from death to life. Old 
things are done away; all things have become 
new. His spiritual eyes have been opened. 
With the average church member there is too 
much haziness and uncertainty about the 
Spirit's work in his life. He ho^Des he is a 
Christian, or he hopes he is saved. There is 
not the ring of spiritual victory in his testi- 
mony. He cannot say, like Paul, "I know 
whom I have believed.'' But the man whose 
heart and life have been touched with the fires 
of Pentecost knows, ^The Spirit himself 
beareth witness with our spirit that we are 
children of God.'^ Then too he has the birth 
marks. Here are some of them : ^^We know 
that we have passed from death into life, be- 



FIKE AND SPIEITUAL EEALITY 85 

cause we love the brethren" ; ^'Whatsoever is 
born of God overcometh the world'' ; ''He that 
is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that 
wicked one toucheth him not'^; "He that be- 
lieveth on the Son of God hath the witness 
in himself.'' Of course he knows the reality 
of the new birth. 

The man of fire knows the authority and 
certainty of the inspired Word, There was 
no apology for truth as Peter with ringing 
voice exclaimed, "Be this known unto you, and 
give ear unto my words." Then he proceeded 
to quote the Old Testament prophecy relating 
to the outpouring of the Spirit, and the words 
of David concerning Christ, and declared that 
this was the day of fulfillment of these Old 
Testament prophecies. He preached the 
truth with power, because he believed the 
truth. Let it be said again — the dynamic of 
authority lies in the Word of God. The Word 
is the sword of the Spirit. Any weakening of 
confidence in the authority of the Scriptures 
means a corresponding weakening of spiritual 
power. To the man whose heart has been 
touched with Pentecostal flame the Bible is 
the very Word of God, and "All Scripture is 
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable 



86 MEN OF FIRE 

for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for 
instruction in righteousness: that the man of i 
God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished l| 
unto all good works/' 

There is so much shallowness in modern 
Christian experience that many church mem- 
bers have no spiritual influence or power. The 
w^orld can see that there is no reality in their 
profession. This statement sometimes applies 
to the pulpit as well as to the pew. Men are 
living far beneath their best. Owen Wister, 
in The Virginian, makes his hero to say, ^^But 
I'll tell yu this: a middlin' doctor is a pore 
thing, and a middlin' lawyer is a pore thing, 
but keep me from the middlin' man of God.'' 
The man who has not come to see the splendid 
reality of the spiritual realm can never be 
more than a ^^middlin' '' Christian ; and thus 
all the great possibilities for usefulness and 
holy living are wasted. 

But there are many whose souls are tired 
of this shallowness, and who are hungry for 
reality. They are tired of living on husks, and 
tired of the ceaseless babble of tongues raving 
about a new age, and a new theology, and New 
Thought, and ^^no sin,'' and they want to get 
back to the great certainties of the New Testa- 



FIRE AND SPIRITUAL REALITY 87 

ment. And the Holy Spirit will light the way 
back to spiritual reality. His baptism makes 
the death of Christ real, and his regenerating 
grace real, and his resurrection power real. 
^^Know ye not/' says the apostle, ^^that so 
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ 
were baptized into his death? Therefore we 
are buried with him by baptism unto death: 
that like as Christ was raised up from the 
dead by the glory of the Father, even so we 
also should walk in newness of life/' The 
man who has received this wondrous baptism 
has died, and has been made alive again. If 
anything in the world is real^ surely it is the 
fact of death and life. Charles Wesley had 
come into the realm of spiritual reality, and 
he sang, 

"Faith lends its reaUzing light; 

The clouds disperse, the shadows fly; 
The Invisible appears in sight, 
And God is seen by mortal eye." 



^^For John truly baptized with water; but 
ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not 
many days hence. ... Ye shall receive power, 
after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you : 
and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in 
Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria^ 
and unto the uttermost part of the earth." 



FIRE AND POWER 

THE church of to-day is up to date. She 
has wealth and scholarship and numbers 
and beautiful temples and fine music. She 
has organization that is almost perfect. Her 
material and educational resources were never 
so great. But she lacks one supreme thing, 
and that is power. The church has so much 
promoting to do, so much machinery to keep 
in order, and so much reputation to conserve 
that she has little time left to seek the foun- 
tains of spiritual power. The risen Lord said, 
^^Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy 
Ghost is come upon you : and ye shall be wit- 
nesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all 
Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter- 
most part of the earth.'' And this promise 
was wonderfully fulfilled, for after Pentecost 
it is said: ^^And with great power gave the 
apostles witness of the resurrection of the 
Lord Jesus.'' ^^And Stephen, full of grace and 
power, did great wonders and miracles among 
the people." And Stephen was a layman. 

91 



92 MEN OF FIRE 

Could lie have his way^ the Holy Spirit would 
release both in ]3ulj)it and in pew to-day re- 
sources of strength and power of which we 
have never been conscious. Dr. H. C. G. 
Moule, in Veni Creator Spiritus, says of the 
reception of the Spirit in his own life : ^^It was 
a new contact as it were with the inner and 
eternal movements of redeeming goodness and 
power, a new discovery in divine resources.'' 

We must be careful, however, to distinguish 
between the real and the unreal here. There 
has been so much cheap imitation of real siDirit- 
ual power that many good people have be- 
come utterly prejudiced against any mention 
of the subject. Some have much to say about 
what they call ^^the power/' and are bluntly 
critical and supercilious toward anyone who 
does not adopt their particular shibboleth. 
But there is no boastfulness or bombast or 
swagger about the man who has had a genuine 
New Testament Pentecost. He will have little 
or nothing to say about his own spiritual 
graces and achievements. His boasting will 
be of the wonderful Christ who has saved him ; 
and the meekness and gentleness and humility 
of the New Testament ideal will be seen in the 
real man of fire. Bishop Thoburn used to say : 



FIRE AND POWER 93 

^^Vociferous prayer and stormy preaching may 
become the habits of a good man, but are by 
no means an evidence of spiritual power/' 

The baptism of fire will give power to con- 
quer self. No man can conquer his evil heart 
without the help of the Holy Spirit. Paul was 
crucified to self. He had conquered self. The 
Spirit, had been his teacher. He "walked not 
after the flesh, but after the Spirit.'' "The 
law of the Spirit of life" had made him "free 
from the law of sin and death." 

The experience of many professing Chris- 
tians to-day is described by the line in Theo- 
dore Monod's beautiful hymn, "Some of self 
and some of thee." But the self life must go. 
The Holy Spirit does not destroy personality. 
He takes his place in the personality, and then 
we live the Christ life. Then we can say, "Not 
I, but Christ liveth in me." Christ becomes 
the center, then everything is adjusted to his 
will. When we die to self, then we are not 
so anxious about our own reputation as we 
are about Christ's glory. Above everything 
else we desire the coming of his kingdom. 

Then, too, we are not so anxious about place 
and position as we are to fit into Christ's plan 
for our lives. And all this means that envy 



94 MEN OF FIRE 

and jealousy of the success of others will have 
to go. When Israel stood before Jericho 
Joshua was the leader of the host. When he 
was considering a plan of campaign a Man 
with a drawn sword appeared. Joshua said, 
^^Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And 
he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of 
the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell 
on his face to the earth, and did worship, and 
said unto him. What saith my lord unto his 
servant?" Joshua was superseded. He must 
fit into God's plan. So must we if the walls 
of these modern Jerichos fall. Christ must 
be all. The Holy Spirit will give power to 
conquer self and enthrone Christ. 

The baptism of fire will give power to seek 
and to love the outcast. The gospel of Jesus 
Christ is for the lost. Jesus declared that he 
came ^^to seek and to save that which was 
lost." The church that is not carrying out the 
Master's mission is surely not the church of 
Jesus Christ. The heart that has not been 
touched by the Spirit of Burning will likely 
despise the outcast. Until the Holy Spirit 
sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts 
there will be little interest in seeking the lost. 
When one of our missionaries and his young 



PIEE AND POWER 95 

wife arrived in India they found conditions 
so different from what they had expected that 
they became utterly discouraged. They had 
always had good homes, had just been gradu- 
ated from college, and now found themselves 
in the midst of a lot of dirty, ignorant, lazy 
natives. The situation was revolting. They 
talked it over and considered returning to 
America. They said, ^^We cannot love these 
filthy people.'' Finally they decided to take 
the whole matter to the Lord in prayer. They 
told him that he had sent them to India, and 
now they found that they did not love the 
people, and that he would have to give them 
love, or they must return home. While they 
were praying the Holy Spirit came upon 
them, and the love of God flooded their hearts. 
Now nothing but death could keep them out 
of India. They saw in every dirty, ignorant 
native an immortal soul for whom Christ died. 
The baptism of -fire will give power to win 
men and women to Christ. During the last 
few years the work of soul-winning has be- 
come increasingly difficult. The methods that 
have been most effective in the past seem to 
fail. Perhaps that is because we have been 
depending on the human means. We have 



96 MEN OF PIEE 

been relying too much on big tabernacles, and 
big choirs, and thorough advertising, and 
sensational methods, and too little on prayer 
and faith and on the ministry of the Holy 
Spirit. We need to recall the words of the 
great soul-winner Paul, who said, "Most 
gladly therefore, will I rather glory in my 
infirmities, that the power of Christ may 
rest upon me. . . . For when I am weak, then 
am I strong.^' Christ is sufficient for all our 
impotence and all our timidity; and the Holy 
Spirit is mightier than all our human ma- 
chinery. 

"Breathe on me, Breath of God, 
Fill me with life anew; 
That I may love what thou dost love, 
And do what thou wouldst do. 

"Breathe on me. Breath of God, 
Till I am wholly thine, 
Till all this earthly part of me 
Glows with thy fire divine." 



A PRAYER 

O Holy Jesus^ King of the saints, . . . pre- 
serve thy spouse whom thou hast purchased 
with thy right hand, and redeemed and 
cleansed with thy blood. O preserve her safe 
from schism, heresy, and sacrilege. Unite all 
her members with the bands of faith, hope, 
and charity, and an external communion when 
it shall seem good in thine eyes. Let the daily 
sacrifice of prayer and sacramental thanks- 
giving never cease, but be forever presented 
to thee, and forever united to the intercession 
of her dearest Lord, and forever prevail for the 
obtaining for each of its members grace and 
blessing, pardon and salvation. — Jeremy Tay- 
lor , in Holy Living, 



THE HEAET OF FIEE 

THE sublimest work on earth is to influ- 
ence immortal souls toward God. This 
cannot be done effectively without a heart of 
fire. Cold religion is a misnomer. ^Tor a 
Christian to be cold is sin.'' The nearer we 
come to God the warmer the heart. When we 
walk with him the heart will flame with a pas- 
sion to win others to him. ^^There is no ice 
in his presence/' says one. Yet we have to-day 
a type of Christian profession that is chiefly 
remarkable for intellectual conceit and frozen 
dignity. It chills rather than warms; it re- 
pulses rather than attracts. In Isaiah's won- 
derful vision those who stood nearest the 
throne were the seraphim — the flaming ones. 
And these burning creatures folded their 
pinions over their eyes to shade them from the 
pure white flame of the infinite majesty of 
God, while they cried: ^^Holy, Holy, Holy is 
the Lord God Almighty." We need to come 
near to the throne. Many of us stand so far 
off that there are frost crystals on our eye- 

99 



100 MEN OF FIEE 

brows. Living in the dimness of a mere shal- 
low profession it is easy to have the compla- 
cency of self-satisfaction and the cold and 
shriveled soul of an utterly selfish life. Then 
there will be no effort to win others to Christ. 
William Arthur's vivid illustration of the 
spiritual effects of the baptism of fire is one 
of the most striking things in his immortal 
book : 

^^A piece of iron is dark and cold; imbued 
with a certain degree of heat, it becomes 
almost burning without any change of appear- 
ance; imbued with a still greater degree, its 
very appearance changes to solid fire, and it 
sets fire to whatever it touches. A piece of 
w^ater without heat is solid and brittle ; gently 
warmed, it flows; further heated, it mounts 
to the sky. An organ filled with the ordinary 
degree of air which exists everywhere is dumb ; 
the touch of the player can elicit but the click- 
ing of the keys. Throw in, not another air, 
but an unsteady current of the same air, and 
sweet but imperfect and uncertain notes re- 
spond to the touch; increase the current to a 
full supply, and every pipe swells with music. 
Such is the soul without the Holy Spirit ; such 
the changes that pass upon it when it receives 



THE HEART OF FIRE 101 

the Holy Spirit, and such its action when it 
is endued with the power of the Holy Spirit/^ 

Now, there are three ways in which the 
heart of fire is cooled : 

1. By putting the emphasis on education 
to the neglect of the spiritual life. This is the 
tragedy that is occurring in many of our 
schools of higher learning to-day. The stu- 
dents' time is so filled with other things that 
there is little or no room for spiritual culture. 
We must have so much time for mental and 
recreational development, and for the de- 
mands of the social life, that there is little left 
for spiritual development. And yet what shall 
it profit if our sons and daughters acquire all 
the mental and social culture of the schools 
and in the end become infidels, apostates, 
criminals, or worldlings? From a Christian 
standpoint is not the spiritual all important? 
Dr. Samuel Chadwick, the great British Wes- 
leyan minister, says, ^^Fire is mightier than 
learning. A soul ablaze is a better guide to 
effective speech than much scholarship. It is 
fire that conquers the heart, and this fire still 
falls from heaven.^' We need a mighty new 
movement in our church schools which, while 
loyal to the highest educational ideals, will 



102 MEN OF FIRE 

put strong emphasis on the spiritual and keep 
it there. We need men and women on the 
faculties of our educational institutions 
whose training in spiritual things is just as 
thorough as their training in the arts and 
sciences and languages — men and women with 
burning hearts to lead our young people in 
the way of a genuine Christian experience. 
2. The heart of fire is cooled hy prejudice. 
There is nothing more chilling to the spirit- 
ual nature than prejudice. We see its effects 
in the lives of those who have become preju- 
diced against the teaching concerning the 
work of the Holy Spirit, or concerning the 
New Testament teaching of our Lord's second 
coming, or toward revivals, or toward people 
whose skin happens to be of a different color 
from our own. Prejudice will introduce cold- 
ness and bitterness into our hearts toward any 
who do not accept our interpretation of cer- 
tain parts of the Scripture. How pitiful the 
coolness that for a time arose between those 
two great ambassadors of Christ, John Wesley 
and George Whitefield. But toward the end 
of Whitefleld's life prejudice faded and the 
old-time affection asserted itself. 

The Holy Spirit cannot dwell in his fullness 



THE HEART OF FIRE 103 

in the heart where prejudice is given room. 
It is his to lead us ^^into all truth/' And he 
knows that prejudice will discolor and distort 
truth. Mr. S. D. Gordon tells of a gentleman 
who was asked by an artist friend to come to 
his home and see a painting he had just fin- 
ished. At the time appointed he went and was 
shown by the attendant into a dark room and 
left there. ^^He was much surprised, but 
quietly waited developments. After fifteen 
minutes his friend came into the room with a 
cordial greeting, and took him up to the studio 
to see the painting which was greatly admired. 
Before he left the artist said, laughingly, ^I 
suppose you thought it queer to be left in that 
dark room so long?' ^Yes,' the visitor said, 
^I did.' ^Well,' his friend replied, ^I knew 
that if you came into my studio with the glare 
of the street in your eyes you could not appre- 
ciate the fine coloring of the picture. So I left 
you in the dark room till the glare had worn 
out of your eyes.' " With the glare of prejudice 
in our eyes we cannot see spiritual truths as 
the Holy Spirit wants us to see them. 

3. The heart of fire is cooled by spiritual 
pride. Nothing is more quickly fatal to the 
spiritual life than a swollen self. And the 



104 MEN OF FIKE 

most subtle form of spiritual pride is a self- 
conscious humility. Alexander Maclaren says 
that "whenever a man begins to suspect that 
he is good he begins to be bad ; and every virtue 
and beauty of character is robbed of some por- 
tion of its attractive fairness when the man 
who bears it knows^ or fancies that he knows, 
it. . . . You may be sure that the more a man 
is like Christ the less he knows it; and the 
better he is the less he suspects it.'' 

When the holy fire has been kindled in the 
heart all pride will be consumed, and *^the 
beauty of the Lord our God will be upon us.-' 

*'0h thou, who earnest from above, 

The pure celestial fire to impart, 
Kindle a flame of sacred love 
On the mean altar of my heart! 

"There let it for thy glory bum, 
With inextinguishable blaze. 
And trembling to its source return. 
In humble love and fervent praise. 

"Jesus, confirm my heart's desire, 

To work, and speak, and think, for thee; 
Still let me guard the holy fire. 
And still stir up thy gift in me; 

"Ready for all thy perfect will. 

My acts of faith and love repeat, 
Till death thy endless mercies seal, 
And make the sacrifice complete." 



"I have chosen thee in the furnace of afflic- 
tion.^' 

^^Thou hast enlarged me when I was in dis- 
tress/^ 



FIRE LIGHTED BY SORROW 

A DISTINGUISHED Scotch theological 
professor, whose name is known far 
and wide, a sincere student of the Bible, but 
whose modern views of the Old Testament 
have sometimes been far removed from the 
traditional faith of the Christian Church, lec- 
turing at Yale some years ago, declared that 
the conflict between traditionalism and criti- 
cism was finished, and that criticism had won. 
But now, after his four sons had gone over the 
top and only one had come back alive, this 
eminent professor says : ^^I have gone back to 
the faith of my covenanting father, back to 
the Bible of the prophets, who experienced 
and wrote it out in times like this, back to the 
faith of that God who died for me on Calvary." 
How often there has been kindled in the valley 
of sorrow a fire that has caused the life to 
burn with a new faith and enthusiasm, and 
has lighted us back into the ^^old paths'^ ! 
In the city of Philadelphia, a little woman, 
107 



108 MEN OF FIRE 

whose face bore evidence that she had been 
through the furnace of affliction, told me that 
in her early life she was an earnest Christian ; 
but after her marriage she drifted into the so- 
called society life, and soon lost all spiritual 
light and joy. Afterward she became a con- 
firmed skeptic, and even refused a minister 
entrance to her home. Then a great sorrow 
came into her life, and through that sorrow 
she came back to God. The fires of grace and 
spiritual power were lighted anew. I knew 
her to be one of the most useful and Christ- 
like spirits in all that section of the city where 
she lived. Yes, through sorrow, the Holy 
Spirit gains access to the heart, and kindles 
again the fires of loving service. 

A story is told of a musician who called at 
the shop of a noted violin maker and ordered 
the best instrument he could make. When the 
violin was finished the musician came to test 
it. He drew the bow across the strings, and 
a look of anger clouded his face. He raised 
the instrument and struck it on the table, 
breaking it into a hundred pieces. Then he 
paid the price he had agreed to pay, and left 
the shop. With infinite patience the violin 
maker gathered up the broken bits and fitted 



FIRE LIGHTED BY SOREOW 109 

them together, and soon the instrument was 
remade. The musician was sent for again, 
and he came. He drew the bow across the 
strings and his face brightened. The violin 
was perfect. He asked the price. "Nothing/^ 
replied the maker. ^^That is the same instru- 
ment you broke in pieces. I put it together 
again.'^ And sometimes God cannot get our 
attention until he breaks the life in pieces. 
There is no music, no spiritual fire, no likeness 
to Christ. Then he permits sorrow to over- 
whelm us, and through sorrow we come to 
know and do the perfect will of God. 

God is not the author of sorrow. As long 
as sin and Satan are in the world we shall 
have tears and anguish and disappointment, 
but sometimes God permits sorrow that he 
may kindle the lamps of prayer and faith and 
testimony in the life. 

In her early years Madame Guyon was a 
vain, thoughtless society butterfly, worshiping 
her own beauty. But she was stricken with 
smallpox, which destroyed her idol. In her 
distress she turned to God, and thus through 
this affliction she became one of the greatest 
Christian leaders of all the centuries. 

There are in almost every life possibilities 



110 MEN OF FIRE 

for holy living and usefulness which have 
never been brought out. And God knows that 
if he could only fill the life with his Holy 
Spirit, it would flame with zeal and faith and 
spiritual beauty. No wonder then that he 
sometimes permits us to walk through the fur- 
nace of affliction if he can in this way turn 
us from our selfish pride and from our indif- 
ference to seek the higher way that leads to 
Christ and heaven. 

"Out of the depths to thee I cry, 

Whose fainting footsteps trod 
The paths for our humanity. 
Incarnate Son of God! 

"Thou Man of grief who once apart 

Didst all our sorrows bear — 
The trembling hand, the fainting heart. 
The agony and prayer! 

"Let faith transcend the passing hour. 

The transient pain and strife, 
Upraised by an immortal power — 
The power of endless life." 



•'Neither pray I for these alone, but for 
them also which shall believe on me through 
their word ; that they all may be one ; as thou, 
Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also 
may be one in us : that the world may believe 
that thou hast sent me. And the glory which 
thou gavest me I have given them; that they 
may be one, even as we are one: I in them, 
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect 
in one; and that the world may know that 
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as 
thou hast loved me.'' 



FIRE AND CHRISTIAN UNITY 

HOW beautiful the spirit of unity in the 
early church! "And they, continuing 
daily with one accord in the temple, and break- 
ing bread from house to house, did eat their 
meat with gladness and singleness of heart, 
praising God, and having favor with all the 
people.'' The Pentecostal flame had fused all 
hearts into a holy fellowship. On a banner 
over the entrance to the tabernacle at the Kes- 
wick Bible Conference I read, "All One in 
Christ." There the atoning and saving power 
of Calvary was emphasized in almost every 
service, and there the glory and sweetness of 
Christian unity was evidenced as I had seldom 
kn3wn it before. All evangelical churches 
were represented; all conditions and types of 
men were there. But the spirit of unity was 
delightful. Before the fire of the Holy Spirit 
prejudice and bigotry and denominational 
jealousy had all melted away. 

There can be no enduring Christian unity 
that is not born at Pentecost. There can be 
no enduring world peace that is not cemented 

113 



114 MEN OF FIRE 

with the Spirit of Pentecost There can be 
no lasting interdenominational fellowship 
that is not begotten of the Holy Spirit. 

The prevalence of so much denominational 
bigotry and narrowness in some communities 
brings derision from the world. What a piti- 
able sight to see eight or ten little struggling 
churches, torn by jealousies, in a community 
where two or three churches would be amply 
sufficient for all the people; and how pitiable 
to find people professing to be followers of 
Jesus Christ who can see no good in any de- 
nomination but their own. The Congrega- 
tionalist tells a story of a missionary on fur- 
lough who was being entertained in the home 
of an old lady. 

"Just think/' exclaimed the guest, "in Korea 
the Presbyterians and Methodists have divided 
the entire territory between them ! Four hun- 
dred Methodist churches in Presbyterian terri- 
tory were told to enroll themselves as Presby- 
terian, and did so without a murmur.'^ 

"Isn't that wonderful! Isn't that splen- 
did !" breathed the old lady. 

"And four hundred Presbyterian churches 
were directed to become Methodist," contin- 
ued the speaker. 



FIEE AND CHRISTIAN UNITY 115 

And the old lady mournfully said : "O, how 
could they?'^ 

The time has come when Protestant Chris- 
tianity must present a united front to the 
powers of darkness. The doors of all the 
nations are wide open to the missionary of 
the cross. There never was a day of such 
opportunity to reach the last man and woman 
with the gospel message as now ; and this can 
be done if only Protestantism will move like 
an army rather than like a mob. If only the 
Master's prayer, "That they all may be one/' 
were answered, the world might be evangelized 
in this generation. 

This does not necessarily mean organic 
union, although there are churches so near 
alike in doctrine and in polity that it would 
seem a shame that they should not be one in 
name. It does not mean abolition of denomi- 
nations or of denominational loyalty, or that 
we should not be at liberty to choose our 
spiritual fellowship. It does not mean ecclesi- 
astical uniformity. But it does mean unity 
of spirit, of purpose, of missionary and social 
effort, and of loyalty to the deity of Christ 
and the authority of the Scriptures. "The 
deepest meaning of Christian unity," says 



116 MEN OF FIEE 

some one, "is union with Christ, oneness with 
the Son of God, identification with Christ in 
spirit, purpose, and labor; and coming out of 
that, as a cause and an inspiration, union of 
Christians, genuine brotherly love and trust, 
a love that sees the Christian in the man and 
that sees Christ in the Christian." 

"The Spirit, when he fills souls," says Dr. 
J. Stuart Holden, "welds them as by holy fire 
with all other Spirit-filled souls, and ^all one 
in Christ^ becomes not a truism, but a blessedly 
experienced truth. This the world waits to 
see, and when it does, it will believe in Him 
whose name we bear." 

True Christian unity, then, is spiritual — 
begotten of the Holy Spirit. And when 
hearts are fused by the fire of God's Spirit, 
then the church will present to the world a 
united front, even though there be diversity 
of views about church polity and diversity of 

names. 

"Like a mighty army 

Moves the church of God; 
Brothers, we are treading 

Where the saints have trod; 
We are not divided, 

All one body we. 
One in hope and doctrine, 

One in charity." 



"I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O 
Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace 
day nor night: ye that make mention of the 
Lord, keep not silence.'^ 



I 



SOME MEN OF FIRE 

STANDING high on the mountain peaks of 
Christian history are a few men of fire 
whose single-heartedness and devotion and 
flaming zeal every Christian worker should 
study daily. These men not only turned the 
multitudes toward God but their influence 
was felt in all the higher realms of life. Sa- 
vonarola, for instance, exerted a mighty in- 
fluence on the art of his day. It was then that 
Botticelli really came to his own. He re- 
stored Christian ideals, and put new life into 
the great historical facts of religion. No 
history of art in the days of the Eenaissance 
would be complete without mention of the 
Monk of Saint Mark's. 

Foremost among these men of flame was 

John the Baptist 

He was the flrst herald of flre in the New 
Testament era. It was he to whom was in- 

119 



120 MEN OF FIRE 

trusted the high honor of announcing Him 
who would "baptize with the Holy Spirit and 
with flre.'^ He came in "the spirit and power 
of Elijah/' and the Master said of him that 
he was "much more than a prophet." He was 
"a sun with a halo, a prophet plus.'^ The 
intensity of his spirit and his utter devotion 
to the work of the kingdom of God recall at 
once the Old Testament Elijah. The fiery 
Tishbite had appeared again, flaming against 
sin, and calling a corrupt age to repentance. 
His ministry was brief, but it burned with a 
quenchless zeal for righteousness. 

Here was a man with sublime courage. He 
was no reed shaken with the wind. He was 
no Beau Brummell of the pulpit, clothed in 
soft raiment. "If the gaunt ascetic," says 
some one, speaking of John, "with his girdle 
of camel's hair and his coarse fare, had been 
a self-indulgent sybarite, his voice would 
never have shaken a nation." 

John was no lecturer. He was a preacher — 
a herald — a man shouting "Repent ! Repent !" 
Joseph Parker used to say that "the lecturer 
comes before you with his kid gloves and 
scented arrangements, and tells you how de- 
lighted he is to have the opportunity of speak- 



SOME MEN OF FIRE 121 

ing to so large, enlightened, and influential 
an assemblage. The preacher stands up and 
says ^Eepent!' And who likes to listen to a 
man whose voice is a charge and whose sen- 
tences are thunderbolts?^^ The age needs ten 
thousand men like the Baptist to cry ^^Repent, 
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'^ 

John's preaching drew the multitudes. 
There went out to him Jerusalem and all 
Judaea and all the region round about Jordan. 
Men wanted the message of fire, and men want 
it to-day. Many of us seem to be obsessed with 
the idea that they want something else. Some 
do, but the many want the message of the 
cross spoken with a tongue of fire. When 
Bishop Charles Bayard Mitchell came back 
from Europe, where he had gone to preach to 
our soldiers following the armistice in the 
World War, he said that by the failure of the 
Y. M. O. A. to organize effectively at the first 
the religious work department, the greatest 
opportunity in the history of the Christian 
Church to preach Christ to open-minded men 
had not been improved. The entertainment 
department of the Association was overdone, 
and some entertainment secretaries "seemed 
to think that the men only desired to be 



122 MEN OF FIEE 

amused, and had no taste for serious matters.'' 
Bishop Mitchell said that their assumption 
was an insult to the troops; and that when 
he had preached the gospel to the men in the 
huts he had seen them get up and walk out 
by hundreds rather than remain for the show 
that was put on afterward. 

When heaven's message of salvation is 
preached by men of fire, and when the church 
in the community is known to be loyal to 
Christ, then the gospel is still the world's 
mightiest magnet, and the multitudes will 
flock to the preacher as they did to John. A 
dead church is the only thing that can neu- 
tralize the message of fire. 

Paul the Apostle 

Saint Paul will always stand in the supreme 
place among Christian preachers. He was an 
evangelist extraordinary. His words of fire 
have lighted all the Christian centuries. His 
superb intellect, his ceaseless energy, his 
heroic self-sacrifice, his utter consecration to 
one great purpose, and his burning messages, 
make him the peer of all men of fire. Only to 
read some of his wonderful prayers, like that 
uttered for the Ephesian Christians, is surely 



SOME MEN OF FIRE 123 

to be eonyinced that his life flamed with holy 
fire. 

There were three things in the life of the 
great apostle to the Gentiles that marked him 
preeminently as a man of fire : 

1. His boundless enthusiasm. His enthu- 
siasm has fanned the missionary spirit of the 
great reformers and missionaries through the 
Christian centuries. Was it not Proclus^ the 
Athenian, who said that life can never be at 
its best until caught in the upward sweep of 
some great enthusiasm. From the day of his 
spiritual birth at Damascus, Paul's life was 
caught in the upward sweep of a holy enthu- 
siasm for Jesus Christ. In the face of the 
greatest difficulties and discouragements he 
never faltered nor hesitated, but went steadily 
forward with his great work. His enthusiasm 
kept him out of the ruts. The rut is always 
fatal to enthusiasm. 

2. His adaptability. No condition or cir- 
cumstance hindered Paul from doing some- 
thing that would count for Christ. Whether 
before a royal court or in a Philippian jail he 
would preach Christ. He said, ^^I am become 
all things to all men that I may by all means 
save some.'' He could adapt his message to 



124 MEN OF FIRE 

Roman soldiers, or to Grecian philosophers, 
or to Jewish rabbis, and plead for his Lord. 
He suited the message to the occasion ; but he 
always made the message glorify Christ. 
Happy is that man who has the insight and 
wisdom to enter into sympathy with the people 
he tries to help, and who can say with George 
Fox: ^^I have prayed to be baptized with a 
sense of all conditions that I might be able 
to know the needs and feel the sorrows of alF' ; 
or, with Paul, ^^I am made all things to all 
men, that I might by all means save some.'' 

3. His high purpose. Paul was always 
doing things, and the man who does things 
will be a target for sharp-tongued and un- 
charitable people. Paul was criticized — 
severely criticized — ^yet in the face of criticism 
he says, "For I determined not to know any- 
thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him 
crucified.'' This supreme life motive lifted 
him above the noise of the babbling tongues, 
and gave him soul-poise. To be God-possessed 
as was Paul is to be able to say with him, "I 
am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; 
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. What 
higher purpose can control a human life? 
Such a life purpose given by the Holy Spirit 



SOME MEN OF FIEE 125 

will make a flaming herald of any man. This 
it did for Zinzendorf, who said^ "I have but 
one enthusiasm; it is He^ only He/' And so 
will it be with all who experience this won- 
drous baptism of fire. 

Chrysostom the Golden-Mouthed 

It is said that Chrysostom had a vision in 
which he saw the altar rails of Saint Sophia 
crowded with angels listening to the sermon. 
No wonder his words broke like thunder 
against the social scandals and loose living 
of the wicked city on the Bosphorus. No 
wonder the hatred of the emperor and empress 
was soon kindled against him, and that he was 
deposed and arrested. But the man who had 
seen God and angels listening did not fear. 
To his friends who gathered about him, em- 
bracing him, and kissing his garments, Chry- 
sostom said: 

"What can I fear? Will it be death? But 
you know that Christ is my life, and that I 
shall gain by death. Will it be exile? But 
the earth and all its fullness is the Lord's. 
Will it be the loss of wealth? But we brought 
nothing into the world, and can carry nothing 
out. Thus all the terrors of the world are 



126 MEN OF FIRE 

contemptible in my eyes; and I smile at all 
its good things. Poverty I do not fear. Eiches 
I do not sigh for. Death I do not shrink from ; 
and life I do not desire, save only for the 
progress of your souls. But you know, my 
friends, the true cause of my fall. It is that 
I have not lined my house with rich tapestry. 
It is that I have not clothed me in robes of 
silk. It is that I have not flattered the effem- 
inacy and sensuality of certain men, nor laid 
gold and silver at their feet. But why need 
I say more? Jezebel is raising her persecu- 
tion, and Elias must fly; Herodias is taking 
her pleasure, and John must be bound with 
chains; the Egyptian wife tells her lie, and 
Joseph must be thrust into prison. And so, 
if they banish me, I shall be like Elias ; if they 
throw me in the mire, like Jeremiah; if they 
plunge me into the sea, like the prophet Jonah ; 
if into the pit, like Daniel; if they stone me, 
it is Stephen that I shall resemble; John the 
forerunner, if they cut off my head; Paul, if 
they beat me with stripes ; Isaiah, if they saw 
me asunder.^' 

Chrysostom was preeminently a man of fire. 
The church of that early age had its meta- 
physicians and its expositors and its apolo- 



SOME MEN OF FIRE 127 

gists and its teachers^ but the Golden-Mouthed 
was a man of fire. For six years in his early 
manhood he dwelt in the desert with monks, 
while he prayed and meditated on the Scrip- 
tures. Sleeping on a bed of straw and deny- 
ing himself all luxury, his nature was chas- 
tened and mellowed and his thought fired by 
the Holy Spirit in preparation for his great 
mission. There the fear of man was forever 
removed. There the glory of Christ became 
the absorbing passion of his life. After he 
had preached at Antioch for twelve years the 
emperor made him bishop against his will. 
But standing in Saint Sophia he was still the 
man of fire he had been at Antioch. The trap- 
pings and honors of ecclesiastical position 
never moved him from his high purpose to be 
the faithful ambassador of Jesus Christ. He 
lived in the day of luxury and extravagance 
in Roman life, but his voice thundered against 
these and against all the sins of the day. 

Of course it was inevitable that the forces 
of evil should soon be arrayed against him, 
and that by imperial authority he should be 
tried and sent into exile. When the people 
insisted on his recall, he came back, but only 
to thunder against sin. Soon he was banished 



128 MEN OF FIEE 

a second time. They drove him into the desert, 
where, worn out with disease and hardship, 
he passed from earth to heaven. 

Savonarola the Christian Statesman 

Savonarola was the first great Protestant 
reformer, and martyrdom by the Roman 
Church was his reward. But his burning 
words have echoed down the centuries, and 
many a Christian knight has heard their call 
and gone forth to valiant service for the King. 
^^Judged by the test,'' said Silvester Home, 
"that a great sermon will make its hearers 
ready to fight and die for the faith, Savonarola 
was a supreme preacher.'' From his pulpit 
in the Duomo he thundered the vengeance of 
God until men fell in terror on the marble 
floor. Rebuking the hierarchy, he said, "In 
the primitive church the chalices were of 
wood, and the prelates of gold; in these days 
the church hath chalices of gold and prelates 
of wood." Beneath his dark, shaggy brows 
burned the fires of a great soul. Lorenzo tried 
to bribe him, the pope tried to silence him, 
but in vain. 

Savonarola came upon the world's stage of 
action at a time of great stress and storm. 



SOME MEN OF FIRE 129 

Both in cliiirch and state corruption was at 
high tide. Liberty was dead. The church was 
worse than dead and the people did not know 
it. It had become paganized. Men were be- 
ing seated in the papal chair through bribes, 
and scandal and corruption were so common 
that little attention seems to have been paid 
to them. Human monsters like Innocent VIII 
and Alexander VI brought Christianity into 
contempt and derision. It was then that God 
raised up this prophet with a soul of flame. 
In early life the splendor and gaiety of the 
age had little attraction for him. He saw 
the wickedness and licentiousness of popes 
and kings and princes, and turned from it all 
to the convent. His first .preaching in Flor- 
ence was utterly unsuccessful. His lips had 
not yet been touched with the holy fire. He 
returned to San Marco and there meditated 
upon the Word and spent much time in prayer 
and fasting. Then the Spirit came upon him 
in a marvelous way. In the villages of Tus- 
cany and the cities of Northern Italy he began 
to preach with mighty power, rebuking sin in 
high places and in low, and prophesying that 
the scourge of God would come upon the land 
unless the people turned from sin. Soon he 



130 MEN OF FIEE 

was in Florence again, and preaching with 
power. He wavered not to declare the whole 
counsel of God. His denunciation reached 
the ears of Borgia, who sat in the papal chair. 
He at once set about to destroy him. First 
he tried to bribe the preacher ; then he threat- 
ened. Hatred at last triumphed, and Savona- 
rola was tortured and hung, his body burned, 
and his ashes scattered on the sea; but his 
burning words have influenced the world to 
this day. 

Luther the Reformer 

The Reformation was a revival of heart reli- 
gion. Its great leader made one mistake. 
Had he as mightily opposed the oppression 
of the peasantry by heartless landlords as he 
opposed the superstitions of Rome, the Refor- 
mation would have had a much wider and 
much more permanent influence. Yet it must 
be said that Martin Luther was one of the 
greatest religious reformers of the Christian 
centuries. 

He sought salvation from sin in the usual 
Roman Catholic ways. He fasted and prayed 
and tortured his body, and sought the seclu- 
sion of the monastery. But at last he found 



SOME MEN OF FIRE 131 

deliverance by faith in Christ. Then the Spirit 
of God filled his life, and with flaming soul he 
proclaimed the great truth of justification by 
faith, and took his stand for the supreme 
authority of the Scriptures. 

Who but a man of fire would dare to speak 
out against the abominations of the church, 
in which he had been reared and educated, in 
words like these? — 

"O ye blind leaders of the blind ! O ye legal 
and technical men, obscuring the light of 
truth! O ye miserable Pharisees, ye bigots, 
ye selfish priests, tenacious of your power, 
your inventions, your traditions, will ye with- 
hold the free redemption, God's greatest boon, 
salvation by the blood of Christ, offered to all 
the world? Yea, will you suffer the people to 
perish, soul and body, because you fear that, 
instructed by God himself, they will rebel 
against your accursed despotism? Have you 
considered what a mighty crime you thus 
commit against God, against man? Ye rule 
by an infernal appeal to the superstitious 
fears of men, but how shall ye yourselves, for 
such crimes, escape the damnation of that hell 
into which you would push your victims un- 
less they obey you?^' 



132 MEN OF PIEE 

And we need to-day men of fire like Luther 
who will have the courage to speak out against 
a growing ecclesiasticism in some of our 
churches; against the worldliness and selfish- 
ness, the indifference and neglect of many who 
profess to be Christians; against the growing 
disrespect for law and for parental authority, 
among young people; against the heartless- 
ness and cruelty of some big corporations ; and 
against the spirit of anarchy prevalent in 
some labor organizations. Surely, only men 
of large vision and wide sympathies and un- 
selfish spirit can be used by the Holy Spirit 
for spiritual and moral leadership in this new 
day. 

Wesley the Evangelist 

In a little Moravian meetinghouse in Lon- 
don while John Wesley listened to the reading 
of Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Eo- 
mans he felt his ^^heart strangely warmed." 
Speaking of that supreme moment in his life, 
he said: "I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ 
alone, for salvation, and an assurance was 
given me that he had taken away my sins, even 
mine, and saved me from the law of sin and 
death. I began to pray with all my might for 



SOME MEN OF FIEE 133 

those who had in a more especial manner 
despitefully used me and persecuted me. I 
then testified openly to all there what I now 
first felt in my hearf 

From that hour he had a calmness and 
confidence and peace which made him master 
of circumstances and conditions. A flame of 
holy zeal swept him out of the conventions 
and formalities of the Established Church. 
And when the doors of the churches were 
closed against him his zeal sent him out into 
the fields and streets to preach Christ, and 
even to stand on his father's grave and speak 
to the multitudes of the great salvation. 
Traveling constantly, generally on horseback, 
preaching two or three times every day, form- 
ing societies, building chapels, raising funds 
for schools, writing books, but above all 
preaching Christ wherever opportunity af- 
forded, he was undoubtedly the greatest evan- 
gelist since Saint Paul. 

Wesley's emphasis on two things in evan- 
gelism gave permanency to his work : 

1. His emphasis upon the witness of the 
Spirit, Wesley never got away from that 
experience in the Moravian chapel. There the 
Holy Spirit had warmed his heart and he 



134 MEN OF FIEE 

knew he was saved. He believed that this 
witness is for every believer in Jesus Christ. 
He insisted that his converts should possess 
it. ^^He that believeth hath the witness in 
himself.'^ When the soul looks to Jesus Christ 
by faith, the Holy Spirit causes ^^faith to rise 
into assurance/' the assurance of sonship — 
that divine inward consciousness of freedom 
from condemnation. Wesley defined it thus: 
^^An inward impression on the soul whereby 
the Spirit of God immediately and directly 
witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of 
God." We need a new emphasis upon this 
precious teaching of the New Testament 
to-day. 

2. His care for the spiritual growth of his 
converts. They were organized into classes 
under competent leaders, who met with them 
once a week and inquired concerning their 
spiritual progress. The leaders advised, en- 
couraged, and directed these converts. In 
these days the class meeting has declined 
among the followers of Wesley. To be sure, 
it was abused, as nearly all good things are 
sooner or later, but pastors would do well 
to study and apply the practical side of the 
plan to the care of converts to-day. 



SOME MEN OF FIEE 135 

The time is ripe for the coming of a great 
host of mighty men of fire, true successors of 
these immortal spirits. The age is pregnant 
with great problems of world interest that 
must be solved if civilization would be saved * 
from utter collapse. The destinies of future 
generations are in the balances. Nations that 
forgot God are tumbling into oblivion, and 
other nations are born in a day. World his- 
tory is moving with the swiftness of light. 
Who will be equal to a time like this? Who 
will save the world from chaos? Who but the 
Eternal Christ of Calvary and the Eesurrec- 
tion morning? If we can have a host of men 
and women with flaming lives, and tongues of 
fire, to proclaim the power of his atoning 
blood, and the glory of his coming kingdom, 
then righteousness and peace shall yet cover 
the earth as the waters cover the sea. 



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